Murder date

A BRITISH Properties couple charged with the second-
degree murder of their daughter-in-law are slated to
appear in North Vancouver provincial court in May fora
five-day preliminary hearing into the case.

Rashida Khan, 45, is jointly charged with her hus-
band, Abdur Rashid Khan, 53, in connection with the
December slaying of 23-year- old Naazish Khan.

Rashida Khan was not in custody during Monday’s
court proceedings in West Vancouver to set the date for
the hearing,

Abdur Rashid Khan was denied bail in December and
remains in custody.

Naazish Khan was recently married to the Khans’
son, Faisal, and had an infant daughter at the time of her
death. The death was caused by asphyxiation, according
to earlier News reports.

*Naazish Khan’s s body was discovered in the trunk of
the Khan family’s car in Coquitlam.

. A preliminary hearing is held to determine if there is
enough evidence for a trial.

_. Snowy survival
‘A 14-YEAR-OLD Burnaby snowboarder was found alive

and well at the bottom of Suicide Ridge on Monday after
spending approximately. 24 hours in freezing conditions

, on Mouint Seymour. «

Jeffrey Bresatz became separated from his brother on
‘Sunday afternoon and failed to show for-« bus ride
. home, according to a North Vancouver RCMP

spokesman. | |.
.- Search conditions were poor due to limited visibility
-’and low temperatures, according to the spokesman.
‘” he North Shore Rescue Team and other area
regources. were used after a full Provincial Emergency
Program call-out was instituted in the search.
| Bresatz credited recent wilderness training for help-
pet him to survive en the mountain. :

Truck route

dy A COMMUNITY open house meeting about truck routes
iin North Vancouver City (NVC) will be ‘held on

ie Thursday, 4 to 8 p.m.

at the Rose Garden Room of Park and Tilford Gardens.

.” Residents are welcome to attend the event which will
‘involve the presentation of three truck-route plans,
'- The plans include a status quo option (trucks to use

almost any street in the city).
NVC officials will be on hand to answer questions.
‘For more information, call NVC at 98

¢

35-7761,

i
i

City librarians peeved

over Computer robbery

“SOME NORTH Vancouver
City (NVC) librarians are still

‘upset_after a thief made off:

with. $15,000 worth of rela-
tively. new computer equip-
‘ment ‘from the library during
the: night of Feb. 3,

' By Anna Marie D'Angelo
News Reporter

“It had to be a real hacker,” said
chief librarian Joe Lavery of the
thief,

Lavery: said one theory to
explain the theft involves a culprit

* ‘staying in the library after it closed.

‘Motion detectors located near

, the entrance und exit of the library
“were not activaicd during the inci-
‘dent.

Lavery said there appeared to be
no forced entry of the library,
which is located at 121 West 14th
St.

».,’He said the thief or thieves also
took apart the library's reference-
-. use computers. : a
- “They must have cased out the
library beforehand,” said Lavery.

Items stolen included disk dri-
ves and CD ROMs of the Canadian
‘Encyclopedia and the Electronic
Encyclopedia of the Second World
War. -

The stolen equipment was

~ passed between suspects through a

broken window, according 10 a
North Vancouver
spokesman.

Lavery said the stolen equip:
_ ment was used for a variety of pure

poses, including accessing refer-
ence materials from other libraries
through 2 data base. i

Most of the computer equipment
was bought last year with a provin-
cial grant, said Lavery. :

“That’s why my systems librari-
an was really upset, because it was
pretty new and some of it was
brand new,” said Lavery. \

Lavery said seven new motion
detectors have been installed since
the theft. |,

Lavery's theory that the thief
stayed behind after closing is sup-
ported by the four or five incidents
over the years in which people have
been inadvertently locked in the
library aiter hours.

The fatest library lock-in
occurred approximately three
months ago.

“T don't know why the guy just
didn’t let himself out, but he got
into some kind of panic and phoned
the cops,” said Lavery,

“The cops called one of my staff
who had to come and let this guy
out.” .
Meanwhile, Lavery requests that
library patrons be patient about
unavailable computer-related mate-
rial until the software and hardware
can be replaced.

RCMP,

PUBLIC HEALTH is being jeopar-
dized by the rise in rec centre fees
on the North Shore, according to
North Vancouver District
Councillor Ernie Crist.

By Kate Zimmerman
Contributing Writer

The district and the city of North

Vancouver have forced the North ,

Vancouver Recreation Commission
to hike fees by curtailing, their own
contributions, Crist told the News.

“The whole idea of recreation
centres is to maximize public par-
ticipation,” he said.

“Public recreation is not com-
peting with private recreation. It is
competing with hospitals and doc-

‘tors’ offices.”

Crist points out that a report
called The Healthy Community,
authorized by the: recreation com-
mission, revealed that the health of
a community is directly related to
its level df fitness.
But he said politicians want to

: impress taxpayers by promising not
; to hike taxes.

They then refuse to increase the
monies allocated to rec centres,
i Crist said, so the taxpayer ends up
paying there.

At any rate, he said, the cost of
the rec centres to the district and
city councils “is infinitessimal com-
pared to the costs to society to pay

. whenever someone goes running to

the doctor.

“The whole idea of rec centres
is to increase public participation,”
he said. :

“We should measure the effi-

Wednesday, February 16, 1994 ~ North Shore News — 5

Coun. Crist raises concerns
over NV rec centre fee hikes

ciency of the rec commission by the
number of people who visit our
facilities — not by whether they
balance the budget.”

North Vancouver Recreation
Commission director Gary Young
said the commission feels the cur-
rent balance — 50% of costs paid
by council and 50% by users —
“seems to work pretty well.”

He said fees for the five major
cenires the commission operates
had been hiked by 4% for 1994,

while the commission’s own costs:

have increased to a greater degree.

Young admits that every time
the recreation commission raises
fees, the ‘move deters someone in
the community from using the cen-
tres,

But he said there is a fine line
between charging users so much
they can’! afford to use the factlities
and placing the burden on the
shoulders of taxpayers.

Crist, who was a member of the
commission for five years, said he
would like to abolish fees altogeth-
er.

“We have a situalion where
swimming pools are empty.

“We have kids out on the street
who would love to use them but

who can’t afford the fees.

“Pm not blaming the rec com-
mission. I'm blaming the politi-
cians,” he said.

But he suggested that the recre-
ation commission, which serves the
city and the district of North
Vancouver, has a responsibility to.
speak up and point out its needs to |
the councils. :

“The rec commission is there to
keep the fees as low as possible or

_do away with. them altogether to

encourage public participation.”

There. should be a community
discussion, said Crist.

“For every dollar the rec com-
mission charges a client, the munic-
ipaliticsalso pay SI, so the subsidy
is 50%, .

“If. we have to subsidize by 90%
or 99%, we have to, because we
want to get as many people in there
as possible,” he said.

Crist notes that the recreation .
centres now have one day a week
when admission is $1. ;

“I have consistently fought for
this idea and each and every year it’
has been a big battle,” he said. |,

Young said the commission is
currently analyzing the. impact of
Dollar Tuesdays on attendance.

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Come and-Enjoy our #vee Demonstrations:

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and Tuesday February 22nd.

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1821 Marine Drive, West Vancouver
Tel: (604) 922-4171 + 922-3968

Fax: (604) 922-9735